Last night my 00 Silverado with the 5.3 threw the A/C belt for the second time in two months. I could not find a sevice bulletin so maybe it was a freak occurance. The truck has 77,000 miles and went 75,000 on the original belt. I had a shop do the last repair because there were several other things that neded to be done.

Questions:

1. is this going to be a recurring problem?
2. is this something I can do myself? I'm not a professional but have worked on cars and trucks quite a bit.

Thanks,

sounds like the belt tensioner is gone and is easy to replace

I had to replace my A/C belt once also, but it has not occured again. I did have to replace the other belt due to it sqeaking.

My truck has started doing the same thing. The belt came off so I replaced the tensioner and belt. It worked for about a week then broke the belt in half! The compressor turns free and is not locked up. I put another belt on and it broke it again in a week. Replaced the compressor and belt, now the compressor is noisy and it drags engine speed down at idle. I know it's about to break the belt again.

Items replaced are: compressor, accumulator, orifice, belt and tensioner. Pressures normal after adding 24 oz. of freon and 2 oz. oil for the new compressor. Did not drain any oil from the accumulator and very little from the old compressor.

Any help is appreciated.

Greg